Basic Prose Style and Mechanics. Basic Prose Style and Mechanics. Craig Waddell. Contents. Introduction . Write in the Active Voice .
For anyone who writes on the job. The Gregg Reference Manual: A Manual of Style, Grammar, Usage, and Formatting, 11th Edition. Sabin, McGraw-Hill, 2011 “Gregg” is a comprehensive manual with the answer to.
Avoid Nominalizations . Express Parallel Ideas in Parallel Grammatical Form . Place the Emphatic Words at the End of the Sentence . Express Statements in Positive Form . Vary Sentence Patterns . Choose Your Words Carefully .
Avoid Overusing Word Modifiers . Clarify the Logical Relationships between Your Ideas . Use Metaphor to Illustrate . Punctuating Quotations . Introducing Indented Quotations, Vertical Lists, and.
Formulas . Punctuating Vertical Lists . Multiple Punctuation .
The Prose Style Section. Since most writers and editors agree about the. I have drawn from a wide variety. However, I would especially recommend two texts: The Elements of. Style by William Strunk and E. B. White and Style. Ten Lessons in Clarity & Grace by.
Joseph Williams. All twelve principles described in the style section above. You may attend to some of these principles spontaneously when you. Remember that good. Samuel Johnson said, .
Write in. the Active Voice. Unless you have a good reason to.
With. the active voice, the agent (the person or thing carrying out the action. John. opened the door. There are two types of passive. In one, the agent is identified, but the person or thing.
Using other people’s research or ideas without giving them due credit is plagiarism.
John. In the second type of passive. The. door was opened.(Note: The verb . The passive voice can, however, be an effective means of. As the quotations below suggest, however, the. We cannot object. We can object to its abuse—to. When the passive is.
John Kirkman, Good. Style: Writing for Science and Technology The active is. I discovered is shorter and less likely to be ambiguous than it was. Moves. files, desks, and ideas without any assistance from a human being. Makes. readers wonder whether they should be doing something or just sitting there. It turns actions into states of being. It's. somewhat mystical, but tends to put readers to sleep.
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Assign responsibility to the system or to the. If you have to tell readers to do.
Avoid. Nominalizations. Unless you have a good reason to. A nominalization is a noun derived from. It is usually more. Our expectation was that we.
We expected to be rewarded. There was a stuffiness. The room was stuffy.
Nominalizations frequently crop up. A noun string, a series of nouns that modify one another, is. If the noun string is short, it can usually be. The test area probes were. The test- area probes were.
Longer noun strings, however, are. Missile guidance center. The office equipment in. Like passive voice. Nominalizations can facilitate smooth transitions. Susan refused to accept the. Ultimately, this refusal cost her the match.
Nominalizations can be effective when you choose to. Thus,He is scheduled to be executed. Monday. becomes. His execution is scheduled for. Monday. c. Since nouns often name material things, they have a. Therefore, although nominalizations often. Thus,The colonists would not.
The colonists would not. Joseph Williams neatly sums up. Express. Parallel Ideas in Parallel Grammatical Form. Parallelism is the principle that. Repetition of the. This could be a problem for.
This could be a problem. Output from VM appears in the output display area. Note also that, although. Hence, parallelism is occasionally. Place the. Emphatic Words at the End of the Sentence.
Joseph Williams offers two. Style, 1st ed.): 1. Whenever. possible, express at the beginning of a sentence ideas already stated, referred. Express at. the end of a sentence the least predictable, least accessible, the newest, the.
Peter Laslett writes about how family structure has. Note that according to the two principles above, what. When. the given information is placed at the beginning of a sentence, it is. What Haviland and Clark call the. In the first sentence, the given. A), and the new information is right- justified (B).
In. the second sentence, the given information is right- justified (B), and the new. C). Although the end of the sentence. Strunk and White point out in The. Elements of Style, . Any element in the. Deceit or treachery he could not. Express. Statements in Positive Form.
The positive form of a statement. Don't write in the. Write in the affirmative. Disengagement of the gears.
To disengage the gears. As Joseph Williams points out. The affirmative states it directly. Vary. Sentence Patterns. A series of sentences that follow. Avoid monotony by. One of the best ways to avoid a.
For example,FLIST is a utility program used. FLIST displays a scrollable, full- screen list of. The user may execute any CMS command from this list. FLIST, a utility program used. CMS command. Another way to avoid a series of.
For example,You can initialize CADAM from. System E terminal. You can invoke CADAM only from the 3. You can initialize CADAM from. System E terminal, but you can invoke CADAM only from the 3. Compound and complex sentences can.
And sometimes, they're just plain awkward. Don't overload your sentences or your readers. If you find a. sentence is becoming too long and confusing, or if you've used three or four. Note that although sentence. One of the best ways to discover. Human language is.
In fact, reading your. Choose Your. Words Carefully. Linguists estimate that the. English language includes over one million words, thus providing English. From this vast lexicon, writers. The list below describes some.
Notice. that the distinctions between these factors are not always sharp; some might. For example, tone, formality, and. Connotation: While the literal or explicit meaning of a word or phrase. Words often have similar denotations but quite. For example, although one denotation of rugged is.
Likewise, although one denotation of pretty is . Tone: While the denotation of a word expresses something about. For example. the following two sentences have similar denotations, but very different tones: The senator showed himself to.
The senator showed himself to. Level of Formality: Some dictionaries indicate whether a word is formal. In writing a report about the symptoms of radiation sickness. As Strunk and White point out. Williams offers the. Pursuant to the recent.
August 9, 1. 97. 9, because of petroleum exigencies, it is. As the memo of August 9 said. Remember, as Abraham Lincoln said. Intensity: Intensity is the degree of emotional content of a. It is common, for example, for wildlife managers to talk about. Choosing a less intense word or. As George Orwell says in .
Thus, political language has to consist. Ultimately, you must rely upon your own.
Level of Abstraction: According to Strunk and White,If those who. There are times, for. Sound: All other things being equal, you may want to choose one.
Although what. you're writing may never be read aloud, most readers do . Rhythm: Although rhythm is quantifiable, most writers rely on. Like sound. rhythm in prose is often an . That is, you wouldn't want to choose the wrong word simply to. However, rhythm can contribute to the flow. Hence, you. may choose one synonym over another simply because it has more or fewer. Even an. occasional bit of deadwood may be justified if it contributes to the rhythm of.
Finally, note that rhythm is. Repetition: Using the same word to refer to the same thing or idea is. For example. substituting commands for translators in the second pair of sentences below. This section describes the.
These translators create object- code files with a filetype of TEXT from. This section describes the. These commands create object- code files with a filetype of TEXT from. Sometimes, however, repeating the. Alternating between a. You can usually help to. Output from VM is displayed.
Output from VM appears in. Avoid. Overusing Word Modifiers. Avoid overusing adjectives and.
These modifiers have their place, but in the most vigorous prose. This principle applies to both ornate, pompous modifiers and to such.
One of the best ways to avoid. For example, you might replace long black car with limousine or ran. Clarify the. Logical Relationship Between Your Ideas. In order to make your writing.
If you fail to. do so, one idea is simply juxtaposed with another, and readers are left to make. In this situation, experienced readers. There are a variety of ways to. For example, you can use the principle. You can also use punctuation to.
For example, you can use a. Of the various means of. These. devices are more prevalent in analytical writing—where logical relationships. There is a. point, however, at which such devices begin to be abused. Properly used. transitional devices signal logical relationships—they do not create.
In fact, there is no transitional device in the English language that can. The. table below (taken from the Harbrace College Handbook) lists eight logical relationships and some of the. Addition: moreover, further, furthermore, besides, and, and then.
Comparison: similarly, likewise, in like manner. Contrast: but, yet, and yet, however, still, nevertheless, on the. Place: here, beyond, nearby, opposite to, adjacent to, on the. Purpose: to this end, for this purpose, with this object.
Result: hence, therefore, accordingly, consequently, thus. Summary, repetition. I have said, in other words. Time: meanwhile, at length, soon, after a few days, in the.
Prune. Deadwood. Deadwood is material that adds. When. you edit your writing, eliminate any words or phrases that can be removed.
I spent my first six weeks on the job in a state of. I have a completely different perspective on the company in. I first started. yes: I spent my first six weeks on the job in a state of. I have a completely different perspective on the company. Occasional exceptions to this. Avoid. Redundancy.
Redundancy, the unnecessary repetition of information, is a subset of deadwood, but. Brackets are used in a command format description to. Brackets are used in a command format description. Occasional exceptions to this.
Use. Metaphor to Illustrate. Metaphor may be broadly defined as. By this definition, similes (expressed.
In prose (as opposed to poetry). If you can't think of a. Hence,Solving the problem was as easy. Solving the problem was easy.
Note that even solitary nouns.
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